This invention relates to paper folding machines, particularly to paper stops for buckle chutes in those machines.
Buckle chutes for paper folding machines are well known. In operation, a sheet of paper is fed by a set of rollers into a chute until the leading edge of the sheet comes into contact with a paper stop preventing further forward motion even as the rollers continue to feed the trailing edge of the sheet. The buckle chute is narrow enough that no portion of the sheet already in the buckle chute can move in anyway to accommodate the continued forward motion of the trailing edge. As a result the sheet buckles outside the chute into the nip between two further rollers which grab onto and begin pulling the sheet where it is buckled, creating a fold. Several buckle chutes may be arranged in series to create more than one fold.
Depending on the type or size of the documents to be folded, it may be necessary to select different fold positions by adjusting the location of the stops in the buckle chutes, which determines how far the sheet proceeds into the buckle chute before it begins to buckle.
Previously, this has necessitated either removing the buckle chute apparatus from the folding machine to obtain access to the stops and manually adjusting them, or a complex and expensive arrangement for translating the stops while the chute is in the machine.
It would be desirable to provide a folding machine buckle chute paper stop adjustment mechanism that is simple to adjust.
It would further be desirable to provide a folding machine buckle chute paper stop adjustment mechanism that allows the machine operator to adjust the stops from the side of the machine without disassembling the buckle chute and that is reliable and inexpensive to produce.
It would still further be desirable to provide a buckle chute paper stop adjustment mechanism for a folding machine that allows adjustment of the stop location without skewing the paper stop.